smiler2505 wrote:Tiscali offer unlimted downloads, with a FUP applied. And it's not an overly strict one (i downloaded Lost series 3, and Scrubs season 6, coupled with my normal web browsing (youtube etc, multiplayer online) all in the same month, with Vista Ultimate the month after that, and we got bottlenecked at peak times (6 p.m. till midnight). Since I do the downloading overnight/during the day so it doesn't impact browsing speeds, it wasn't an issue. It was a problem for gaming, but you can hardly say it wasn't deserved, I had downloaded a lot in about 3 weeks...and it's back to normal now anyway.

its really not, not when you have a whole network to run and be profitable. Think about it the other way round; if I was a casual user, and the equivalent of me was downloading as much as I was, then it would affect my speed, unless the other person was capped.

smiler2505 wrote: it's a strange kind of limited where you can download as much as u want *angry but sarcastic pitiful emoticon here*

Look into that Unlimited* and you'll see the the * leads to Unlimited time online, Fair Usage Policy applies. Like pretty much all ISPs that offer unlimited access, it is far from unlimited.

THEY HAVE A FAIR USAGE POLICY?! ZOMG I NEVER FIGUREZ THAT OUT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!11111!!!!!!!11111!!! < sarcasm

Don't get sarcy with me. You were claiming that Tiscali were completely unlimited..

smiler2505 wrote: it's a strange kind of limited where you can download as much as u want

.... when in fact they aren't, like pretty much all ISPs but they let you download less than most other ISPs which was my whole point. Tiscali suck, they are oversubscribed for the network they have so they have to implement traffic shaping that goes far beyond what most ISPs do. BT and Freeserve (as it was) all went through the same network shortfall when the internet became widely used and again when ADSL was first introduced. Their solution was stupid restrictions which cost them customers who were smart enough to know what was going on. The difference is that BT learned from the mistake and its highest priced package is now one of the most unrestricted deals around because it has put in a network that can handle it. Tiscali are all about getting customers' money with no regard for returning a decent service.

RB wrote:Don't get sarcy with me. You were claiming that Tiscali were completely unlimited..

smiler2505 wrote: it's a strange kind of limited where you can download as much as u want

.... when in fact they aren't, like pretty much all ISPs but they let you download less than most other ISPs which was my whole point. Tiscali suck, they are oversubscribed for the network they have so they have to implement traffic shaping that goes far beyond what most ISPs do. BT and Freeserve (as it was) all went through the same network shortfall when the internet became widely used and again when ADSL was first introduced. Their solution was stupid restrictions which cost them customers who were smart enough to know what was going on. The difference is that BT learned from the mistake and its highest priced package is now one of the most unrestricted deals around because it has put in a network that can handle it. Tiscali are all about getting customers' money with no regard for returning a decent service.

Nah, I said they were unlimited. Obviously a FUP would apply. Not once did I say they were COMPLETELY unlimited

And like I said it hasn't affected me because we have a relatively slow connection

the outfit seems to be stifling BitTorrent uploads (but not downloads)

That's actually rather cunning when you think about it.

By not throttling the downloads, they're expecting the average user to not complain, but by restricting upload speed, they'll be able to say to the record industry "look, we're helping prevent Americans from sharing your stuff"

It's a bad idea from a torrent point of view, of course, but somehow, I doubt they care about that.